Three decades after brutally murdering his wife and two children, former U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Edward Zakrzewski is set to be executed Thursday evening at Florida State Prison. Zakrzewski, 60, was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle at the time of the 1994 murders that shocked the military community.
Zakrzewski pleaded guilty to killing his wife, Sylvia, and their two children, 7-year-old Edward and 5-year-old Anna, inside their Mary Esther home in Okaloosa County. Prosecutors said he attacked Sylvia first with a crowbar, strangled her with a rope, and then used a machete to kill the children one by one. He later struck Sylvia with the machete to make sure she was dead.
“He used a crowbar to bludgeon and strangle his wife, then called his children one after the other into a bathroom, where he hacked them to death with a new machete,” North West Florida Daily News reported in 2016.
According to investigators, the killings were triggered by marital issues and Sylvia’s plan to divorce him and take the children to South Korea, her native country. After the murders, Zakrzewski fled to Hawaii and lived under an alias for four months before surrendering to police after his case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries.
Ties to Eglin Air Force Base
At the time of the murders, Zakrzewski was a 29-year-old technical sergeant stationed at Eglin AFB, one of the largest Air Force installations in the country. Eglin is home to the 96th Test Wing, the Air Force Armament Directorate, and multiple special operations and test units, making it a critical hub for weapons testing and training in the U.S. military.
The case left a lasting mark on the Panhandle military community. Mary Esther, where the murders occurred, is a small city wedged between Eglin and Hurlburt Field, where many service members live off base.
Sentenced to Death Despite Split Jury
In 1996, an Okaloosa County jury recommended the death penalty in a 7-5 vote, a margin that would not meet Florida’s current requirement of at least eight jurors for capital sentencing. The trial judge, G. Robert Barron, imposed three death sentences, overriding the jury’s life recommendation for the youngest victim, Anna.
Zakrzewski spent nearly 30 years on death row, filing multiple appeals that were ultimately denied. His final attempt to secure a stay of execution was rejected Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Zakrzewski is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Eastern Time at Florida State Prison. He will be the ninth inmate executed in Florida in 2025, setting a modern state record for executions in a single year.
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